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“Eenie, meenie, mmie, moe. Be a good Guy, help me go. Hoola boola, teenie weenie, ram em, damn em, figure em, duck em, watch me go, don’t be a shmoe. Stop em, block em, sing a go go go.”
Not until they had gone a mile into the city of Onaback and turned from 24 into an alley did he relax.
“Whew! That’s torture, and I been doin it ever since I was sixteen, some years ago. Today seems worse’n ever, maybe cause you’re along. G’yaga men don’t like it if they see me with one a their wimmen, specially a cute chick like you.” Suddenly, he smiled and broke into a song about being covered all over “with sweet violets, sweeter than all the roses.” He sang other songs, some of which made Dorothy turn red in the face though at the same time she giggled. When they crossed a street to get from one alley to another, he cut off his singing, even in the middle of a phrase, and resumed it on the other side.
“Guy In The Sky, we’re off to a flyin start! Look!—some old grates from a coal furnace. And a pile a coke and beer bottles, all redeemable. Get down, Dor’thy—if you want to know how us ragpickers make a livin, you gotta get in and sweat and cuss with us. And if you come acrosst any hats, be sure to tell me.”
Dorothy smiled. But when she stepped down from the truck, she winced.
“What’s the matter?”
“Headache.”
“The sun’ll boil it out. Here’s how we do this collectin, see? The back end a the truck is boarded up into five sections. This section here is for the iron and the wood. This, for the paper. This, for the cardboard. You get a higher price for the cardboard. This, for rags. This, for bottles we kin get a refund on. If you find any int’restin books or magazines, put em on the seat. I’ll decide if I want to keep em or throw em in with the old paper.”
They worked swiftly, and then drove on. About a block later, they were interrupted at another heap by a leaf of a woman, withered and blown by the winds of time. She hobbled out from the back porch of a large three-storied house with diamond-shaped panes in the windows and doors and cupolas at the corners. In a quavering voice she explained that she was the widow of a wealthy lawyer who had died fifteen years ago. Not until today had she made up her mind to get rid of his collection of law books and legal papers. These were all neatly cased in cardboard boxes not too large to be handled.
Not even, she added, her pale watery eyes flickering from Paley to Dorothy, not even by a poor one-armed man and a young girl.
Old Man took off his homburg and bowed.
“Sure, ma’am, my daughter and myself’d be glad to help you out in your housecleanin.”
“Your daughter?” croaked the old woman.
“She don’t look like me a tall,” he replied. “No wonder. She’s my foster daughter, poor girl, she was orphaned when she was still fillin her diapers. My best friend was her father. He died savin my life, and as he laid gaspin his life away in my arms, he begged me to take care a her as if she was my own. And I kept my promise to my dyin friend, may his soul rest in peace. And even if I’m only a poor ragpicker, ma’am, I been doin my best to raise her to be a decent Godfearin obedient girl.”
Dorothy had to run around to the other side of the trunk where she could cover her mouth and writhe in an agony of attempting to smother her laughter. When she regained control, the old lady was telling Paley she’d show him where the books were. Then she started hobbling to the porch.
But Old Man, instead of following her across the yard, stopped by the fence that separated the alley from the backyard. He turned around and gave Dorothy a look of extreme despair. “What’s the matter?” she said. “Why’re you sweating so? And shaking? And you’re so pale.”
“Tell me. I won’t laugh.”
He closed his eyes and began muttering. “Never mind, it’s in the mind. Never mind, you’re just fine.” Opening his eyes, he shook himself like a dog just come from the water.
“I kin do it. I got the guts. All them books re a lotta beer money I’ll lose if I don’t go down into the bowels a hell and get em. Guy In The Sky, give me the guts a a goat and the nerve a a pork dealer in Palestine. You know Old Man ain’t got a yellow streak. It’s the wicked spell a the False Folkers workin on me. Come on, let’s go, go, go.”
And sucking in a deep breath, he stepped through the gateway. Head down, eyes on the grass at his feet, he shuffled toward the cellar door where the old lady stood peering at him.
Four steps away from the cellar entrance, he halted again. A small black spaniel had darted from around the corner of the house and begun yapyapping at him.
Old Man suddenly cocked his head to one side, crossed his eyes, and deliberately sneezed.
Yelping, the spaniel fled back around the corner, and Paley walked down the steps that led to the cool dark basement. As he did so, he muttered, “That puts the evil spell on em figurin dogs.”
When they had piled all the books in the back of the truck, he took off his homburg and bowed again.
“Ma’am, my daughter and myself both thank you from the rockbottom a our poor but humble hearts for this treasure trove you give us. And if ever you’ve anythin else you don’t want, and a strong back and a weak mind to carry it out… well, please remember we’ll be down this alley every Blue Monday and Fish Friday about time the sun is three-quarters acrosst the sky. Providin it ain’t rainin cause The Old Guy In The Sky is cryin in his beer over us poor mortals, what fools we be.”
Then he put his hat on, and the two got into the truck and chugged off. They stopped by several other promising heaps before he a
“I got some money,” rumbled Old Man, unbuttoning with slow clumsy fingers his shirt pocket and pulling out a roll of worn tattered bills while the truck’s wheels rolled straight in the alley ruts.
“You brought me luck, so Old Man’s go
He stopped Fordiana behind a little neighborhood tavern. Dorothy, without being asked, took the two dollars he handed her and went into the building. She returned with a can opener, two quarts of beer, and a half pint of VO.
“I added some of my money. I can’t stand cheap whiskey.”
They sat on the ru
“We worshiped The Old Guy In The Sky who says what the thunder says and lives in the east on the tallest mountain in the world. We faced the skulls a our dead to the east so they could see
“And we was doin fine for a long long time. Then, out a the east come them motherworshipin False Folk with their long straight legs and long straight necks and flat faces and thundermug round heads and their bows and arrows. They claimed they was sons a the goddess Mother Earth, who was a virgin. But we claimed the truth was that a crow with stomach trouble sat on a stump and when it left the hot sun hatched em out.
“Well, for a while we beat em hands-down because we was stronger. Even one a our wimmen could tear their strongest man to bits. Still, they had that bow and arrow, they kept pickin us off, and movin in and movin in, and we kept movin back slowly, till pretty soon we was shoved with our backs against the ocean.
“Then one day a big chief among us got a bright idea. ‘Why don’t we make bows and arrows, too?’ he said. And so we did, but we was clumsy at makin and shootin em cause our hands was so big, though we could draw a heavier bow’n em. So we kept gettin run out a the good huntin grounds.